Chapter 5 : Who Needs You?

NOTE: The full chapter is available in a purchased copy.

There are millions of companies but only one that will employ you. Which one will it be? Why do you want to work for one company versus another? What makes one viable and others less so? In the 21st century, you also have to consider the technological revolution occurring around you. New technologies will drive some companies to greatness and bury others. Also these changes will, in greater degrees than we desire, drive our future. No one has a crystal ball and can predict what will happen to any given company. However, you can research trends, statistics and meaningful company data and then attempt to make the best choice you can. If you’ve done this, then you’ve done your best.

Technology is driving changing trends in the marketplace, thereby creating demands upon employers to compete in a global economy. These conditions are re-defining our concepts of work, job, workplace and profit-making decision models. U.S. companies are moving more and more jobs offshore. Unless you understand what is required of you and are strategically planning on joining forward-thinking companies in making these 21st century transitions, you will be left behind, become a job-description dinosaur and find yourself out of work in the next 10 years. History is the very best teacher, if we are smart enough to learn from it. Frank Jarlett, in an outstanding article published in the Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, Winter, 1998-99, stated that for 70 years the Swiss â€œownedâ€ the watch-making market. He stated that the Swiss watch industry had over 62,000 employees, 65% of the world’s sales, and 90% of the world’s profits. In 1967 they basically turned down the idea of the quartz watch movement and labeled it a useless invention. Electronic watches took over the market while the Swiss still maintained they made gears and springs. This backward thinking, old-workplace mentality resulted in a 90% watch industry unemployment rate. Now, move forward to today’s marketplace and ask yourself what your company is doing to compete in the new world order economy.

Who Needs You?

You must ask yourself what are you doing in so far as education and retraining are concerned to keep up with lightning-speed changes in the workplace? What are the current and future trends? Which fields will keep you abreast of or ahead of super-fast marketplace changes? Why don’t you join the Gladiator? The website and newsletter contain articles by yours truly and other nationally known authors on topics ranging from resumes to transferable skills to interviewing and negotiating techniques. We also post a market watch to keep you abreast of changes affecting career direction and potential. Which companies and industries will you choose and why? This is a tough question to answer in light of the above statements. If you stay where you are, will your industry survive long enough to allow you to retire? If the answer is yes, great! If the answer is no, then you must re-evaluate what education and training you need to alter your profile and gain acceptance among the decision-makers in the new economy workplace.